by Noire
As soon as they pulled off Gutta turned the radio to a rap station and cranked the volume up loud. They rode down the streets of Harlem with their windows vibrating from the bass, and Gutta tryna stomp a hole in the floorboard as he kept up with the song’s beat. Barron had just turned onto Lenox Avenue when Gutta threw him a stiff bow and told him to stop the car.
“Yo! Pull this shit over!” he barked over the music. They were just about to pass Club Lick ’Em, an elite titty bar and strip joint where the streets were packed and a big crowd of people were coming and going. “I need to make a quick stop in that joint. My manz supposed to be up in there tonight.”
Barron cut his wheels to the right and got out of traffic, then shook his head in mad exasperation. He knew Gutta wasn’t trying to get inside no strip club to get up with no nigga. This fool had the fear of flying and a thirst for liquor on the brain.
“C’mon, my dude!” Barron tried to reason with him. “There’s some drinks waiting for us at a lounge in the airport. This ain’t the time to be hollering at no freaks in the club.”
But Gutta had already opened his door and hopped out.
“Shit!” Barron cursed and turned the radio down as he watched Gutta bounce through the club’s front door. It was crowded as hell out there. Every parking spot was taken, and the streets were lined with double-parked whips. All kinds of pimp-type nigs were rolling out of limos with half-naked working girls hanging off their arms. Barron doubled-parked his rental car a block away and started walking briskly toward the club.
Selling pussy wasn’t what it used to be, he noticed as a giggling pair of young hookers brushed past him and he caught a whiff of their scent and frowned. A lot of chicks on the stroll these days looked tapped out. Instead of fixing themselves up so they could turn a dude on, some of the shit they slapped on was a straight turn off. If Barron was gonna lay out good money for some used pussy then the chick better smell like honey and perfume, not like a whole jar of sour pickles and some flaming-hot Cheetos.
Outside the club, fliers were taped to the door and plastered on the windows that said Club Lick ’Em was hosting its fourth annual Tri-City Playa’s Ball for the Labor Day weekend. Hustlers and chicks from New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, DC, and Philly were ballin’ and partying together and drumming up money so a portion could be donated to a children’s outreach foundation.
Barron pulled the door open and the thick smell of funky carpets and sweaty ass washed over him. He stepped inside and immediately his eyes were drawn to the stage on the far side of the room. The overhead lights were dim, and colorful spotlights shone down on the strippers as they snaked their bangin’ bodies around the shiny golden poles.
Barron walked in deeper, and his eyes scanned the tables as he searched for Gutta. He spotted him sitting with a bunch of hood nigs, right up front where the action was. Picking up an empty chair, Barron joined them at the round table that had been pushed off slightly to the side.
Gutta was chilling with his set and getting even more lit. Him and all his boyz fronted Barron off with killer glares when he sat down, but the hostility disappeared when a long-legged waitress in a short skirt and high heels came over to take Barron’s drink order and he told her to bring him some yak and to give Gutta and his friends another round of whatever the fuck they was already drinking.
“Goddamn!” Gutta hollered real loud as a new round of strippers came up on the stage. It looked like a bunch of fine-ass working girls were out in full force tonight. A lot of them had come from out of town with their pimps, and they seemed hot and hyped to participate in all the sexy contests that Club Lick ’Em was hosting for the weekend. With his eyes glued to the chicks on the stage, Gutta tossed back his drink and pointed at the one in the middle and yelled, “That bitch right there got some nice big titties!”
Gutta’s crew laughed in agreement as Barron checked the girl out. Her chest was puffed out real tight, but it didn’t look half as good as Mink’s did. All of a sudden he felt something like jealousy jump up in his chest as he cut his eyes at Gutta. This drunk fool had been all up in Mink’s guts. He’d sucked those pretty titties with the nice thick nipples, and he’d banged that plump ass of hers and tasted that juicy slit too.
“I gotta piss.” Gutta got up from the table and disappeared into the darkness of the crowd. Barron couldn’t help plastering his eyes back on the stage. The combination of thinking about Mink and watching the sexy stripper grind her ass on the stage pole made a knot rise in his drawers. He scooted his chair further under the table and tossed back his Hen dog, then signaled to the waitress to bring him another round.
But before she could come over to the table, the lights changed on the stage and a slamming cut blasted from the speakers. All the little tester-strippers ran toward the background, and a whole new slew of fine big-booty girls, about six of them, busted out from the darkness strutting their thick thighs and round hips on center stage, and started twerkin’ and grinding and mopping up the floor as they dipped their sexy chips.
Every man at the table sat there with his mouth wide open, mesmerized and damn-near sucked into a coma by the spectacular thighs on one particular shawty who was rocking a frilly yellow thong. Her legs were thick and shapely and she was shaking her ass like she was trying to make both cheeks fall off.
Just about every chick up in this set could make the average nigga cum in his drawers, but none of them had shit on the explosion of red feathers that suddenly burst out from deep in the back of the crowd. She wore a mask over her face, but her luscious body was high yellow and exotic. Sicker than sick. A small halo of red feathers circled her head and two tiny ones were stuck to each of her nipples. Her hips looked like sweet lemon perfection. Her waist was tighter than tight, and her redbone ass was hunked out in the back like it shoulda had its own zip code. She coiled and winded her body at the waist just like a snake, and every eye in the house was molesting the hell outta her stunning bottom half.
Barron couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Mami was twerkin’ her thick butt so hard her flesh jiggled and made his eyes go gaga. She shimmied across the stage with her magnificent body drawing whistles, big bank, and resounding applause. Barron’s dick swelled up in his pants to twice its normal size, and he was just about to holler out loud when Gutta came back to the table. He stared at the gorgeous stripper for a quick second, and then that drunk gangsta nig wilded straight the fuck out!
“Yo, Mink!” he hollered at the top of his lungs.
The chick on the stage ignored him as she spread her stunning legs for all the men to see. She ran her tongue around the edge of her lips and massaged her slick pearl with one slim finger. Greenbacks rained down on her like a tropical shower as dudes tossed their entire pocket stash at her feet. She bit down on her lower lip, then grinded her hips in a sexy circle and humped her hand at the same time, and a puddle of drool leaked from almost every mouth up in the joint.
Gutta lost his head. He snatched up his chair and held it over his head, and then he launched that shit up on the stage like it was a missile. Strippers came up off their poles screaming and ducking. The girl pulled her finger outta her pussy, snatched off her mask, and bent down and started scooping her money up off the floor as fast as she could.
Two bouncers in white tees rushed over to get at Gutta, but he was a big muthafucka. He swung on the tall one with the bald head and crashed dude flush in the grill. Before the other bouncer could get him some, Gutta leaped up on the stage and grabbed the girl around her ankles as she tried to run away, yanking her down to the floor.
“Mink!”
The other strippers screamed in terror as the girl slammed down on the stage ass-first. Red feathers flew everywhere. Fighting like a true soldier, she kicked out viciously at Gutta, digging her pointy high heels all in his face. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she threw a flurry of man-blows at his head that had that drunk nigga covering up instead of fighting back.
“Get the fuck offa me, you psycho bitch
!” she hollered as Gutta got her in a bear hug and laid her out flat. He was all over her ass, and he flipped her into a headlock and started choking her lights out right in front of Barron’s eyes.
About five bouncers attacked outta nowhere. They rushed up on the stage and swallowed Gutta up as the music came to a screeching halt and the overhead lights were flicked on.
Gutta’s crew started wildin’ out too. They jumped up on the stage swinging and tossing mad dudes off of their manz.
“Mink!” Barron could hear Gutta bellowing drunkenly from somewhere near the bottom of the fighting pile. “Bitch I’ma kill your ass! I’ma kill your ass, Mink!”
More security dudes jumped up on the stage and Barron caught a glimpse of Gutta being pinned down with his hands roped behind his back.
“Mink!” he hollered. “Mink! What the fuck is you doin’ up in here, Mink?”
Yeah, Mink, Barron raged inside as he stared at the girl and thought about the two empty seats that were about to be on that red-eye flight to Dallas. Just what the fuck is your ass doing up in here?
It took a good minute to get everything calmed down, but shit was always jumping off at a strip club and the management at Club Lick ’Em was quick to restore order and get their clients back to pinching titties, buying drinks, and shooting off during lap dances.
“Yo, I coulda sworn you was her! I swear to God you look just like her,” Gutta muttered over and over to the stripper he had assaulted up on the stage. He had a big bruise from getting busted upside his head in the fight, but he’d sent three bouncers crawling off the stage covered in blood too. If it hadn’t been for Barron sliding the club’s owner some big loot to cover the damage that had been caused, wasn’t no telling how the night would have ended.
“You really do look like her,” Barron told the girl who sat across from him in the red-feathered thong. They were drinking in a back room with the chick and one of her funny-looking girlfriends, and both of them said they worked at a strip club in Philly. “I mean, just like her.”
It was true, but even though the girl, who told them her name was Dy-Nasty, had the same pretty face and stacked body as Mink’s, there was something a little different about her too. Barron checked her out while she talked to Gutta. This girl looked harder than Mink. Tougher. Her fingernails were broken off and every one of her toes had either a bunion, a corn, or a callus sitting on top of it. Mink was definitely a rat from the projects, but this beautiful chick right here was a ’rilla from the zoo. She had some crust on her that wasn’t on Mink, Barron had to admit. Some kind of hard-knock grime that looked like it would never wash off.
“Hey, lemme ask you something,” Barron said as he stared at Dy-Nasty. He’d been steady looking her up, down, and sideways, with his mind racing crazily a million miles a minute, and when the light bulb finally went off in his head the glass shards rocked him like an explosion. Nah, it couldn’t be, Barron told himself. Hell fuckin’ no! It just couldn’t be!
“Yo, you ever been to Texas?” he blurted out.
Dy-Nasty turned away from Gutta, then frowned and gave him the dumb-ass look. “No. Why?”
Barron shook his head quickly. “Nah, no reason. I’m just asking.” He paused for a few seconds, then went in at her again. “You ever heard of a girl named Sable Dominion?”
Dy-Nasty’s hand trembled and her drink spilled over the edge of her glass. She glanced at her funny-looking girlfriend real quick, then stared hard at Barron.
“Yo, who the hell is you? You got a badge up under that Polo or what?”
“Nah,” Barron said, “I ain’t got no badge, but I do have some DNA results back at my crib. What you know about that?”
Barron had asked a loaded question and he damn sure got a booming answer. He couldn’t believe what the fuck came out of Dy-Nasty’s mouth.
“I just took me a DNA test not too long ago!”
Barron nodded at her. The Gods must have been smiling down on him, because for once in his life it seemed like all his little ducks had just snapped to attention and lined up in a row.
“I’m Barron Dominion. I got your test results.”
“For real?” Dy-Nasty exclaimed when Barron told her exactly who he was, and then ran a plan down her so sweet and made her an offer so scrumptious there was no way her broke, trifling ass could refuse.
“So you tellin’ me you’re Sable’s brother and you want me to come with you to Texas so I can get all that rich girl’s money?”
“Yep,” Barron lied as he eyeballed her. This chick was even worse than Mink. Much worse. He didn’t know how the hell both of them had managed to pull one on the DNA lab, but neither one of them was Sable. He knew that for a fact. Especially Dy-Nasty. This chick had lockup written all over her, and she probably had Mink’s rap sheet beat up and down, coming and going. And that was exactly what he was counting on. He had the perfect opportunity to catch two hoodrats with one fat hunk of cheese. With Dy-Nasty’s DNA match in his pocket, it was gonna be real easy to prove Mink was a fraudster, and even easier to have Dy-Nasty’s crusty, criminal ass disqualified from the trust account.
“All you have to do is come to Texas,” Barron told the raunchy stripper with the dollar signs flashing in her eyes, “and with your results in my hand, I’ll present them to our board of directors and you’ll get your money. It’s just as simple as that.”
“Yo,” Gutta barked. His bottom lip was busted and the noogie on his head was fucking up his whole flow. “So when I’ma get my money, nigga? Yo, son, you owe me! I’m telling you, you better not try to fuck me outta minez!”
Barron half chuckled. “I got you, man. You gonna get paid in full. I’ll wire it to Frankie tomorrow and he’ll slide it to you.”
“Wire it to Frankie? I thought me and you was flying out tonight, slime?”
“Nope.” Barron waved him off and reached out for DyNasty’s hand. “You missed your flight, my man. I gots me a new rider now.”
CHAPTER 15
Me and Bunni had only been at the mansion for about a week when some Texas-sized shit-balls hit the Dominion family fan. I was sitting at the kitchen counter eating some grits and eggs that Miss Katie had fixed for me, when a crazy-loud scream cut through the air.
It sounded just like Selah. Me and Miss Katie both froze.
There was a big commotion coming from the front of the house, and I heard Barron’s voice above everybody else’s. He was back in town and he sounded straight-up shook.
“What in the world . . .” Miss Katie gripped the neck of her dress as both of us looked toward the front room. Instead of answering her, I jumped off my stool and hauled ass outta the kitchen and sprinted down the long hallway. I met up with a servant they called Big Grownie, who was waddling toward the kitchen as fast as she could.
“What in the world happened?” I asked her.
“It’s Mrs. Dominion!” she blurted out. Her flat nose was sweating like crazy and her stockings swish-swished as her fat legs moved. “I gotta get some ice. She done passed plum out!”
I went dashing down the hallway and into the big living room, and what I saw made me skid right in my tracks. Selah was down, all right. She was stretched out in the middle of the floor with Barron crouched down beside her, slapping her cheeks and tryna bring her back.
It looked like everybody in the whole damn house had come running, but it was the person I saw standing right beside Barron that had my full attention. I struggled to figure out what kinda bullshit I was seeing in my brain, and I got smashed with a lightning bolt to the eyes as I looked past first Barron, then Dane, and then Bunni and one of the housekeepers, and to my shock and surprise . . . damned if I wasn’t looking straight at . . . me!
Oh yeah, the shit had hit the fan and sprayed all over the Dominion Estate! Barron had came back from New York with some chick who looked just like me! And just like me, she was claiming to be Sable Dominion and now everybody in the mansion was going straight-up fuckin’ bananas!
It felt like
a bomb had gone off in the damn house as Barron stood in the middle of the room and announced that he’d found the real Sable, and then held her DNA test up in the air to prove it.
Gasps went up and suddenly everybody turned and looked at me like I was a liar and a goddamn thief! Jock had the nerve to smirk and shake his nuts in my direction, while the rest of the family got hyped and started talking real loud all at the same time.
I stood there feeling like a sho’nuff convicted criminal. I could see why Selah had passed the hell out. My knees were wobbly too as I stared at the bodacious new chick who was now striking a pose on Barron’s arm.
“So, who’s really who?” Fallon demanded over all the noise. “Are y’all related or what? ’Cause y’all look just alike.”
“Ooooh, Mink!” Bunni pushed her way in between me and Fallon and whispered all up in my ear. She was so amped she pinched the shit outta the underside of my arm, and if all eyes wasn’t on me I woulda knocked her ass to the moon. “That bitch do look like you!” she whispered. “She really do!”
“Well she ain’t me!” I snapped as me and the rough-looking chick stood across the room from each other doing the Harlem stare-down. Mami was in the life, I could tell just by looking at her. She was hardcore with her shit, too. She probably stripped, danced, turned tricks, and did whatever else she could do to press a nickel into a quarter.
“Mink!” Barron called my name out real loud. This nigga had a suspiciously slick grin on his face as he pulled the girl over to me and introduced us. “Mink, this is my little sister Sable, also known as Dy-Nasty. Dy-Nasty this is Mink. Say hello to each other ladies.”
I stared into her hazel eyes and I couldn’t deny the truth of my lie. I was caught out there. Busted in my hustle. Straight thrown off my game. I peeped the hostile smirk that flashed on mami’s face, and right away I knew I wasn’t gonna open my mouth and speak unless this bitch spoke to me first!